vaultofthearchonfandomcom-20200214-history
105281-summer-fun-less-game-time
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Summer = Summer Vacation from school = more time for people in middle/high school to be playing MMOs. Outside of kids in school and teachers, Summer is the same as Winter is the same as Spring is the same as Fall. I'm 28 and I don't get weeks off of work simply because it's Summer outside. I don't know of many professions/jobs that give these extended weeks off outside of teaching professions, and even then... My friend account list (roughly 45 accounts) isn't essentially empty because these people are taking 2-3 week summer vacations, or month long vacations. It's because they left the game. Once Summer is over there isn't going to be some mass return of all the people that have already left the game simply because they're back to their normal, non-summer schedules. | |} ---- You havent played many mmo's then since this happens to EVERY mmo during summer. This time of year is the slowest for mmo's and around end of august, beginning of september A LOT of people are coming back. Its nothing new :) | |} ---- I've played a lot of MMO's during the summer. This extreme drop off does not happen. I know for a fact most of the people on my friends list have quit. For good. Not summer. But please, keep telling yourself there will be a surge of people coming back in a few weeks. | |} ---- No you havent since this is a fact that this happens and these kind of threads saying the game is dying ALWAYS pops up on forums during this time more than the rest of the year.. And i didnt say a serge, i said A LOT, which is gonna happen. But please, keep telling yourself that a lot of people wont be back after summer. | |} ---- Okay. So I haven't been playing MMO's since Ultima Online. Got it. All I'm hearing is "I play Exiles on a heavily populated server so the game is fine." | |} ---- List of MMO's I've played; UO DAoC AC1 AC2 EQ1 EQ2 WoW SWG Shadowbane Lineage 1 Lineage 2 Anarchy Online Matrix Online WH:O FFXI FFXIV CoH/CoV/CoX Champions Online Aion Tera LOTRO DCUO Vindicus SW:TOR Rift GW2 D&D:O Star Trek Online And probably about a half a dozen to a dozen that I know I'm forgetting But sure, I haven't played many MMO's :rolleyes: Been playing them consistently for over almost 2 decades, it's my favorite genre, but nope I guess I haven't played enough of them. | |} ---- Don't bother you can't argue with these people they'll just have to wait and realise when it's too late | |} ---- I wasnt even answering to you but yea i played those too except SWOTR and in all these games summer is slow as *cupcake* so yea whats your point lol | |} ---- ---- You weren't even answering to me? You sure about that? Because you directly quoted me and posted (essentially) the same thing that you said to another poster in this thread, who happened to also say (essentially) the same thing I did. We've been playing MMO's for nearly 20 years and have never come across a noticeable difference in population simply based on the time of year. You do, however, see a noticeable difference in MMO's within the first few months if the game isn't up to the expectations of most others. This is what is happening with this game. The only real time you'll see MMO population dip is around the winter holiday season. I've been raiding in MMO's for far longer than I care to admit and the only time I've ever come across issues getting a full raid group together is the week before Chrismas through the week after New Years. My point, simply put, is that you are wrong. The people that have left the game aren't just taking a small break due to it being summer. I have, like I said, a friends list of nearly 50 ACCOUNTS (not just characters, so I can see if they're making alts on new servers) and of them only 3 are still active today. An overwhelming proportion of them are MIA for 2-3 weeks or longer. | |} ---- ---- I answered hob first then you. But either way yea 2-3 weeks, hmm sounds a lot like the lenght of time you go on vacation, seeing friends, family, stay out late? I havent been online for 3 weeks due to vacation. Now im back and playing again and enjoying it. Next week ill go away again for a week and wont play at all. I think loads of people do that. Of course people leave for good but if you think all those 50 on your list is gone for good i think youll be surprised when you see some of them back later :) | |} ---- Sorry, I live in the real world where people don't take entire months off of work for vacation simply because it's summer. I would ask your age but by your posting you seem to be a naive teenager who thinks they have the answer for everything. Of the 50 or so accounts I have on my friends list I gathered quite a large number of their Steam accounts as well - probably about 30 - and guess what? They're mostly all around playing other games like Dota 2 or Team Fortress. But sure, they'll all be back to play Wildstar once summer is over, right? | |} ---- Ohh the days when I could afford to take off work in the summer. :-/ I miss that. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Well its funny you have to take it to a personal level. Where i live we have 5 weeks paid vacation, im sorry you dont but not my problem really. You exaggerate a bit when you say months also but usually people go away for 2-3 weeks and i never said anything else. Also, i googled around a bit to see what other games say you claimed you play and in swotr they even warn for it being slow in the summer and last year they even gave players double xp for a time during summer. Im sorry you feel so offended about that the game might be a bit slower during summer, maybe you should go on vacation to calm your nervs a bit? | |} ---- I'm not offended at all, however you telling me that I need to "go on vacation to calm my nervs" further's my statement that you're a naive teenager who thinks they have the answer for everything. Even if I could afford to go on a vacation (which I can, for the record), in my line of work one simply does not take a few weeks off without major consequences. I'd rather worth 30-40 hours a week for the next 3 weeks than take those 3 weeks off, lose thousands of dollars worth of work to competitors, and come back buried to where I'm working 70-80 hour weeks for the next 6 weeks trying to catch up. And for the record, when I said "I live in the real world where people don't take entire months off work" I didn't mean they take multiple months off work. I mean they take a 4 week vacation which equals to (roughly) a month. I suppose you could make the argument that I could have written "don't take an entire month off work", but then you could make the argument that I should have written "wrote" instead of written. English is a tricky language, I know. | |} ---- ---- Yup. I've seen this trend many times. I can hardly believe it myself but there are a lot of people who actually enjoy being exposed to natural light this time of year and who'll spend much of their time not in front of their computers. Madness! | |} ---- ---- How you choose to take your vacation and why you dont go on vacation isnt relevant to this and all you can say is im a naive teenager. People around the world usually take a few weeks off during summer to go on vacation or are you gonna argue that too? In my experience and the people i play my games with experience this slowing down in mmo's during summer isnt a new thing and i will say again: WS is active, actually its very active for being summer. The fact that exiles are the most prefered side and new commers choose high populated servers isnt being not active. They need to work on dom side to make it more attractive and merge a couple servers thats a little less populated, every game has a couple servers that is less populated and in time they merge them. That has nothing to do though with the game being dead since its not. But it is a lot slower than it will be in a couple months :) Also, i googled around a bit to see what other games say you claimed you play and in swotr they even warn for it being slow in the summer and last year they even gave players double xp for a couple weeks during summer for being so dead. Im sorry you feel so offended about that the game might be a bit slower during summer, maybe you should go on vacation to calm your nervs a bit? You seem to want to argue instead of having a discussion and thats not really my thing so im out of this thread ;) | |} ---- ---- People can play more than 1 MMO at a time. Shocking, I know. I was playing DCUO, Rift, SWTOR and WoW all at the same time, for example. The only games I listed that I didn't spend at least 4 or so months on were Shadowbane and MxO. You evidence is anecdotal at best. It being "very active" for summer isn't something that you, nor I, can actually chart. In my experience, I've seen more people leave the game than I have seen join the game. The game is following the release trend of many, many MMO's. You get an initial amount that buy the game on release, and retain maybe 30-40% of those as subscribers over the first few months. This has nothing to do with what time of the year it is, and has everything to do with the quality of the game and the expectations of buyers. If SWTOR is the only case where you can find "proof" of people taking a break during the summer, and the rest of the 20+ games I mention you can find no mention nor any "proof" of it, then clearly there's something to be said about that. Just like no MMO will ever reach WoW's subscriber status as it's the outlier, one can assume that SWTOR is in the same boat - the outlier, not the standard. You should also keep in mind that SWTOR does the bonus XP weekends sporadically all throughout the year and hasn't specifically kept them to the parts of the year where there is a lower population of players than others - again, anecdotal at best. | |} ---- If you are playing that many MMORPG's at the same time, then either you have no job and play all day every day. Or, you do not spend enough time in either to really matter. | |} ---- ---- Or I know how to manage my time? When all you need to do is log in for a few hours one day a week to do all your current tier weekly raids for 2 of the 4 games I listed, that leaves plenty of time to play the others. DCUO's top tier raiding could be cleared in maybe 2 hours if you had a bad group, while my guilds (at the time) in Rift and WoW were 1-shotting the top tier raids on different days, leaving me with 5 days to play SWTOR. All of this while I was working 50 hours a week. But sure, go ahead and assume I was either a no lifer or didn't play enough. I don't have to play WoW 8 hours a day 7 days a week when I had already been playing it since day 1 launch and had multiple characters at max level / max raiding gear, nor do I have to play it that much to know what's going on with the community. | |} ---- It's a conspiracy! | |} ---- Couldn't agree more, every other MMO on the market sees the biggest spikes during summertime... it's when youth go back to school that activity tends to dwindle and become lesser. That's how it's always been as far as I and most are aware... it's interesting how factoids keeps magically altering for the sake of Wildstar... perhaps Wildstar really is "that hardcore"? :huh: Nah! EDIT: What I'm gathering even from just this thread... seems a 50/50 split (give or take)... some believe there's activity to be had in summer such as vacations, some believe there's more time for gaming. As for the ones believing time for vacations, ironically, they're here instead of vacation (*giggle*)... anyroad (some may get the reference LOL)... what that should suggest is not EVERYBODY believes the same way and not EVERYBODY is magically all on vacation at the same time... so sure SOME might be on vacation, but to say that the entirety of the game-population plummet is because everybody is magically vacationing at the same time is just silly. I know right!? Probably why I got hooked on Second Life for as long as I did... *goes into virtual shell-shock*... erm, anywho... also why I love the idea of VR... being able to escape in short intervals without having to schedule a huge block of time or alter everything else. Sort of like those schools that don't have summer-vacation... think there's something to be said for short breaks to keep momentum going. | |} ---- ---- LOL... I know rightt? :D (Emphasis on the "come back" in that scene... and Jack may as well be those "not coming back", rofl. Rose may as well be those of us still here, while the guy screaming from the boat can be any new players when they show up maybe the devs, hahaha. Since so many wanted to chant that Wildstar was untouchable and unsinkable... I guess it'd be the Titanic in this sense...) | |} ---- Exactly. The people that aren't playing because they're on summer break are going to be the same people that aren't playing in a month because they're back in school, and then aren't going to be playing because it's the Winter Holidays, etc etc. Will we see some people come back next month? Sure. Will it offset the amount of people that quit in the meantime over shit like broken PVP, useless classes in PVE/PVP, servers crashes and all the other stuff wrong with the game? Hell no. | |} ---- Right not Magically, they need to put out a big Polish patch (not ultra drop) then put out a HUGE ultra drop, and then let people come back for free for a week, then let the game be free for a week for anyone after that. *sigh* I dunno maybe I'm fooling myself and this game is done. It's like if you don't launch smoothly you fail in this new generation of MMOs and I'm beginning to think I'll never see a good MMO get a chance thrive ever again because people just aren't willing to give it time.. and no it's 2014 isn't a valid argument. Come back and say that when you have a Game Art and Design Degree. | |} ---- Even though I probably shouldn't, I'll go ahead and bite... by chance, do you happen to have a Game Art and Design Degree pray-tell? ^_^ | |} ---- I know you don't want to hear this, but I believe F2P also helps with this problem. The F2P market seems to generally be a loooot more patient (just look at all those games which are pure trash compared to current Wildstar and are doing fine). And if people leave shortly after launch, they're more likely to check back later when the game has improved because "hey it's still free". :( | |} ---- Agreed, patience is much easier when a player isn't tied down to paying each and every month while just "hanging on and hoping". Telling people to wait it out, and hang on for months at a time, becomes pricing at a price-tag of $15/month on top of the initial purchase. I mean honestly, if not for CREDD, missus and I wouldn't even be in Wildstar anymore... not that we do all that much in it anymore anyways. From the collective impression I get around the forums, many seem to also be on the CREDD-express. | |} ---- I don't think it was that the launch wasn't smooth. It was pretty smooth. It isn't any one magical reason why WildStar is having a tough go. It's a myriad of issues ranging from simple bugs, to core design issues, failed promises, etc. It's unfortunate that people take it so personally that some of us are pointing it out. We're still here because we love the game and think Carbine can turn it around. We want a successful game. We want a healthy population. We see a solid foundation that can be built upon. I didn't wait 3 years for this game to just throw in the towel overnight. | |} ---- The issue with them putting out a big polish patch is that people are already bored out of the minds with the content in the game (Raiding exluded), and need that monthly infusion of something new to do or they're going to quit. Likewise, a "huge ultra drop" would take them months to do given their current schedule, and in those months where there is no new content the game will stagnate severely and many subs will drop off, where no amount of "PLEASE COME BACK!" emails will fix. I get countless emails from other games / MMO's begging me to come back for a free weekend or free week to come check out everything new in the game and by that point I've already moved onto another game or have zero desire to return to a game I already gave up on months/years prior. | |} ---- Pretty much this. If I wasn't sitting on over a years worth of gametime already added to my account via CREDD I wouldn't have played past the Strain ultra drop. As it is I log on maybe 5-10 hours a week, if that. Which has dropped considerably from the 30-40 hours I was putting in when the game first launched. I don't even bother making it to all the raid nights for my guild anymore because I simply don't care and because Medic healing took such a hit last patch that we're a lot less desired than we once were. | |} ---- ---- ---- Very good points, also on the first fact, could be tossed in, adults (even ones outside teachers, professors, etc) will be around the house more, because their youth are now around more. It's one thing to not have a household to worry about as much while youth are in school, while at work... but it's another during the summer knowing your kid(s) are at home, and might like a bit more quality time with their parents -- and I highly doubt in this day and age, there's that many parents that will play completely non-stop, with no breaks whatsoever, with their kids from the time they get home until the time they lay down at night, each and every day of the week. | |} ---- ---- Many companies call these people "revenue". It helps pay the employees and hosting costs. | |} ---- ---- Well, that's true, actually. There IS money in that group. 40k * $15 a month = 600k a month. That might pay for eight devs and two to three servers, to say nothing of the owning company, shareholders, other employees, etc. | |} ---- Exactly. If you get rid of all the excess subscriptions and money there will be no lag! Just kidding, there will still be a lag and telegraphs missing even if there was 1 server for each player. | |} ---- ---- Ahahahahahahaha... no. | |} ---- I'm just curious, what, in your opinion, is completely off limit for so-called "casuals"? What would constitute a watering down? | |} ---- This game isn't hardcore. It's timegated RNG. #hardcore | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Please explain how I'm wrong. I already cited my sources on how students have a 30% unemployment rate. Cite your sources. | |} ---- you're redacted if Carbine didn't want the casuals they wouldn't have housing, solo story instances, adventures and ship hands and they certainly wouldn't have been talking about catering to all the demographics including the 65% (carbines number) who play solo all the time. yet they did, they just didn't deliver the goods. the end game is a train wreck. and I say that as someone who absolutely loved this game. you are so eager to see the game crash and burn to prove a point, you just don't seem to realize you are already getting what you wish for. The casuals you despise so much won this war, HARDCORE is not keeping this game fun, amazing, interesting or populated, it is not keeping the servers populated, it is not bringing in new players, it is not creating a good community. | |} ---- Summer is when professors are generally devoting more time to the work they really want to do - research. Not to mention keeping up with certification hours and often even taking second jobs, or teaching summer classes. :P There are no sources to cite. If you think teachers don't work in the summer, you've got a very strange perspective. That's getting way off topic though. ^^; Students might have more free time over summer breaks, but anyone attached to schools in a professional capacity does not. | |} ---- Put devs out of work and shatter dreams, all for the greater glory of your e-peen. You are the cancer that is killing Wildstar. The sooner Carbine makes changes that sends you off in a hail of tears, the better. | |} ---- ---- And again with the sociopathic attitude. | |} ----